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The Case of Galileo: A Closed Question?

ByAnnibale Fantoli.Notre Dame, IN:University of
Notre Dame Press,2012. xii + 271 pages. \$28.00
(paper).

Michael Horace Barnes

Horizons / Volume 41 / Issue 02 / December 2014, pp 378 - 379

DOI: 10.1017/hor.2014.53, Published online: 10 November 2014

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S036096691400053X

How to cite this article:

Michael Horace Barnes (2014). Horizons, 41, pp 378-379 doi:10.1017/hor.2014.53

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 BOOK REVIEWS

control of the history of letter writing in classical and late antiquity as well as a
grasp of the epistolary corpus of Augustine in its literary and historical
context. Her conclusion is a very clear summary of her thesis and its develop-
ment throughout the book. According to Ebbeler, Augustine ultimately failed
in his attempt to adapt the traditional friendly letter exchange to the task of
correcting error in the Christian community, quite simply because the indi-
viduals with whom he corresponded were unwilling to accept correction.
One also wonders how willing Augustine, who took firm and unrelenting
theological and political positions, would have been to accept correction
from his adversaries.

KENNETH B. STEINHAUSER
Saint Louis University

The Case of Galileo: A Closed Question? By Annibale Fantoli. Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press, . xii +  pages. $. (paper).
doi: ./hor..
Annibale Fantoli’s answer to the question posed in the subtitle of this book
is negative. John Paul II went a good way toward laying to rest the lingering
controversies concerning the treatment of Galileo by the Holy Office in the
early seventeenth century, Fantoli acknowledges. Yet, as he sees it, there is
still an embarrassing touch of cover-up on the part of the commission the
pope set up to review the case. The eventual papal statement claims there
were errors on both sides of the dispute, and that unfortunately
Pope Urban VIII and the Holy Office felt they had no choice but to discipline
Galileo for making claims that far exceeded the evidence at the time. Fantoli
disputes this reading. The bulk of the book is devoted to a review of historical
evidence, including that made newly available to scholars when the archives
of the Holy Office were opened in .
The occasion for John Paul II to address the Galileo case was the th
anniversary of Galileo’s death, for the pope an opportunity to establish
better relations between science and faith. He had set up a commission
under French cardinal Poupard, which gave Poupard material for formal
statements and for “experts,” as Fantoli puts it (), to compose a statement
the pope could deliver. Though Fantoli believes the pope was quite sincere in
his desire to bring an honest and honorable close to the long-controversial
Galileo affair, Fantoli finds the statements by both Poupard, and thus also
the pope, at least disingenuous.
Six of the seven chapters are devoted to a review of the actual events, as
best as Fantoli can determine (and based on his own earlier, much longer
 BOOK REVIEWS 

book). To make his case, Fantoli cites primary materials relentlessly, whether
written by Galileo, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, Florentine diplomats, or
ecclesial officials, pointing out where textual sources are ambiguous or
missing. The book strikes this reviewer as a meticulous and balanced study.
Fantoli focuses on a few major points. One is what type of warning
Bellarmine gave Galileo in  about presenting Copernicanism as a
settled issue. A document signed by Bellarmine and given to Galileo insists
that Galileo could treat the Copernican hypothesis as possible, but that he
must not treat it as proven. Bellarmine himself seems to have thought it
could never be proven—who can really understand the celestial realm, after
all?—so the geocentric tradition must stand by default, as best conforming
to Scripture. (Ironically, as Galileo had pointed out in his famous letter to the
Grand Duchess Christina, Augustine had already faced the problem that the
geocentric view was Greek science and not truly biblical.) But a Holy Office
official named Michelangelo Segizzi summarized the Bellarmine-Galileo
meeting differently, saying Bellarmine had forbidden Galileo even to teach
Copernicanism.
A second focus is whether Galileo had reason to think his old friend
Maffeo Barbarini, who became Urban VIII, would not mind if Galileo did
indeed present the case for Copernicanism (“teach” it?) along with the geo-
centrism of the Aristotelians in a written dialogue. Galileo misread the
pope’s situation, intention, and theories and thus to his own surprise
found himself called before the Inquisition in Rome. In Fantoli’s persuasive
rendition, both the pope and the inquisitors (seven of the ten judges, at
least) found it possible to stretch or distort the evidence to force Galileo
to recant and “abjure,” which meant that if he ever again defended
Copernicanism, even as a hypothesis, he would become a heretic, subject
to burning.
In the end Fantoli applies the results of his careful work to a somewhat
negative evaluation of how the Vatican today handles awkward issues. He
reflects on the difficulty many in the church still have, as he sees it, of adapting
to a new and quite possibly legitimate worldview. He compares the
Aristotelians of Galileo’s time to moral theologians today who use a premo-
dern approach to modern medical issues, such as the use of contraceptives.
This erudite study, crammed with details and names, is well worth the time
and attention of anyone interested in this story.

MICHAEL HORACE BARNES

University of Dayton